Labour TD Anne Ferris has revealed that she was date-raped at the age of 16 and then forced to give her baby up for adoption.
The TD explained to the Irish Daily Mirror that she had had to hand over her little girl. “I became pregnant as a teenager,” the 59-year-old said. “It was what we’d call these days a ‘date-rape’. This was back in the early 70s. I was 16. I thought that I would be able to keep the baby.
“I was so immature that my parents made the decision for me. They thought I wasn’t old enough, and they were an elderly couple, they weren’t able to rear another child. So they took the decision that my baby would be put up for adoption, it wasn’t my choice.
“I was very bitter about it,” she continued. “On reflection though, when I was into my early twenties, looking back at the age I was, I thought they made the right decision for me."
Anne, who was speaking out in order to support the newspaper's Adoption Rights campaign, then talked about her joy of being reunited with her daughter some years later.
“I was one of those people who put on the register that if my child ever came looking for me, here was my name and address. And lo and behold, she did.
“Meeting my daughter was lovely. She would have been in her early twenties when she came to look for me… it was fantastic. It’s an absolute wonderful, emotional rollercoaster of a journey when you meet the child you’ve given up for adoption.
“I and many other women will say they felt such a loss at losing their baby. When you do get reunited with your child, they’re not a baby, they’re an adult. In one sense the experience is probably better. You’re on a different journey.”
Anne herself was raised by adoptive parents. She found out that she was adopted when she was 17-years-old.
